Category Archives: Events

Discovery Museum: Free events for families with children with disabilities

Events

The Discovery Museum (177 Main Street, Acton) offers its Especially for Me program of free events for families with children with disabilities. All events are free but require registration. Registration links will appear on this page before each event, and you can register now for the January 21 event here. at the links here. The events for 2023 are:

  • Mornings for Families of Deaf, Hard of Hearing, & KODA Infants and Toddlers (closed to the public): Mondays 9:30AM-12:30PM on February 13, September 11
  • Sensory-Friendly Afternoons (open to the public, but no group visits are scheduled): Tuesdays 1:30-4:30PM on February 7, March 7, April 4, May 2, June 6, August 1, October 3, November 7, December 5
  • Evenings for Families with Deaf, Hard of Hearing, & KODA Children (closed to the public): Saturdays 5-8PM on March 11, May 6, December 2.
  • Evenings for Families with a Visual Impairment (closed to the public): Saturdays 5-8PM on February 4, October 7.
  • Autism-Friendly Evenings (closed to the public): Saturdays 5-8PM on January 7, March 18, April 1, June 3, September 16, October 21, December 16
  • All-Access Evenings (closed to the public): Saturdays 5-8PM on January 21, May 20, June 17, November 18

Volunteer as a judge in ‘Future City’ middle-school civil engineering competition, Jan. 21

Events

Future City is a four-month civil-engineering program for middle-school students, culminating in an annual design competition in January. This year, it will be January 21 at Wentworth Institute in Boston. The program seeks professional engineers (and others with relevant technical backgrounds) to volunteer as judges to evaluate the student teams’ work. Volunteers can be working professionals, retirees, or college/graduate students with experience in STEM, urban planning, architecture, or related fields. Email Reed Brockman at newengland@futurecity.org.

Mustang Math Online Math Competition, Apr. 29

Events

Mustang Math — a nonprofit organization of high-school and college volunteers — runs annual mathematics competitions in-person in Washington, DC and in California, as well as an online competition, which this year will be on April 29 (9AM-4:30PM PST). The competitions are centered on teamwork and collaboration. Teams of four students address challenging/interesting problems and develop strategies to master the unique and fun game-like rounds — including a logic-based puzzle round, a strategy-filled hexes round, a race-like gallop round, and the ‘Mystery Mare’ round. Students entering the online competition register individually or in teams, are consolidated into teams of four, and are placed in one of three divisions based on the highest grade level (6, 7, or 8) of team members.

A very successful M Snake — friendly math competition for Grades 6-8

Accomplishments, Events

On Saturday, November 12, 80 students — from Oak Hill, Brown, F.A. Day, Bigelow, Bowen, Zervas, Memorial-Spaulding, and some private schools — gathered at Newton South HS for M Snake, a new, friendly mathematics competition created and run by NSHS students. For most participants, this was their first experience with math competitions, and there was a lot of excitement.

The event included lunch and prizes and was free for all participants, thanks to the generous sponsorship of The Village Bank, the Daily Challenge with Po-Shen Loh, the AoPS Academy Lexington, and Wolfram.

The morning was focused on two individual rounds:  30 questions in 60 minutes, then 7 harder questions in 30 minutes. After lunch, the highlight of the competition consisted of students in teams of four collaborating to answer questions in sets of three against the clock. Many teams were assigned randomly with students from different schools.

NSHS students were entirely responsible for organizing and running the event, including live grading, engaging with competitors and their parents, hosting the guest speaker, and awarding prizes. For three months beforehand, their preparation work involved writing problems, designing the competition website, doing community outreach, finding sponsors, communicating with parents, and much more.

The event went very smoothly, with a lot of positive feedback from parents. Prof. Po-Shen Loh, the coach of Team USA for the international Math Olympiad, attended the event and gave a talk for students and their parents about the use of math in real life. He also spoke highly of the event and praised its organizers. From the positive reactions of students and parents, it’s clear that there’s an appetite for an annual event like this in Newton.

The event ended with a statement from the founder of M Snake, NSHS junior Elena Baskakova, and the awards ceremony. Top scorers in the individual rounds were Stephen (Brown), Joshua (Oak Hill), Ryder (Oak Hill), Jason (Brown), Pia (F.A. Day) and Ranbeer (F.A. Day). In the collaborative team sprint round, the top teams were Brown Pi-thon, Math Maestros, and Mathketeers.

MITES Saturdays: Fall Symposium at MIT, Dec. 3

Events

MITES (MIT Introduction to Technology, Engineering and Science) is a rebranding of the MIT Office of Engineering Outreach Programs. Each year, MITES Saturdays (formerly SEED Academy) engages about 100 students in Grades 8-12 in Boston, Cambridge, and Lawrence in a series of STEM-related activities. On December 3, 10AM-3PM, these students will present their final projects in the MITES Saturdays Fall Symposium in the Stratton Student Center at MIT. Students’ projects focus on Computational Neurobiology, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Data Visualization, and Engineering Design. Attendance at the symposium– in-person or online — is free. Register here.

LigerBots host another successful FLL Qualifier competition and STEAM Expo

Accomplishments, Events
photos: LigerBots

The sound of the MC announcing the matches over the background music, a sea of colorful custom T-Shirts, and LEGOs scattered throughout the school: This was the scene of the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Newton Qualifier last Saturday at Newton North High School. The FLL Qualifier, run by Newton’s dual-high-school robotics team, the LigerBots, was back almost in full swing after the pandemic broke the momentum a couple years ago. During this event, LigerBots members from Newton North High School and Newton South High School shared their passion for robotics with elementary and middle school aged students from eighteen teams throughout the state.

Running alongside the Newton FLL Qualifier, the annual LigerBots STEAM Expo was a success for the over one hundred kids attending! The many exhibitors included the Massachusetts National Guard, Green Newton, and Johnson String as well as these high school clubs and teams: NNHS Programming Club, NNHS STEMentors, NSHS Science Team, and NSHS Women in STEM. In addition, the LigerBots hosted eight STEM activities and demonstrations resulting in the making of approximately 100 Binary Bracelets, 100 Balloon Cars, 100 origami double pyramids and tangrams, 50 cups of slime, and 20 Solar ovens — and the awarding of over 100 buttons.

The event ended with an Awards ceremony and a Dance party! Awards in several categories were given out, with the top ones going to the Goofy Gyros (Champion’s Award Winner) from Ashland, Mechanical Madness (Champion’s Award Runner-up) from North Attleboro, Team Arrow from Canton, the Green Gearticks from Lincoln, and the Exploding Bananas from Lexington. We had five teams from Newton, and of these, The Cookie Coders won 2nd place in the Core Values judging and Team Voltage won the Rising All-Star award.

— LigerBots Davis (NNHS Junior) and Charlotte (NSHS Sophomore)